Our  first thought reading this week’s Newsweek article on military chaplains was, ‘did we miss the story?  Were we somehow duped for the entire three months we spent in Afghanistan and Iraq?’

The answer of course is, ‘no.’  We weren’t.  Not only did we spend so much time with chaplains and troops that, had someone been proselytizing inappropriately, we would have gotten wind of it.  The troops might not have told us outright -- an enlisted soldier or Marine might think the better of blowing the whistle on a chaplain.  Chaplains are, after all, officers as well as clergy.  But the chaplains themselves would have revealed what they were up to.  As is clear from the Newsweek article and from the videos circulating on YouTube, chaplains and troops feel no need to hide.  

Some people find this appalling.  We think it is good.  Were they hiding or disguising their activities we could not have a debate.  In the same vein, we appreciate the straightforward, sometimes belligerent attitudes of both Mikey Weinstein and Arthur Schulcz.  They are a vital part of the conversation the country needs to have on military chaplains.   And they are in our documentary.

But to be effective, the debate has to include other voices as well.  And, most important, it has to stay focused on the troops.  No matter whether we agree or disagree about the wars our country engages in;  no matter how we feel about the existence of an institution designed to fight wars; and no matter what our religious beliefs --  there are men and women, some as young at 19, serving our country.   They are losing limbs, burying buddies, testing marriages, missing children, limping home with scars seen and invisible....   They are the ones we need to keep in mind when we debate the issue of military chaplains.  

The two extremes cannot find enough common ground to talk -- both Billy Baugham (whose viewpoint was represented in the Newsweek piece by his lawyer, Arthur Schulcz) and Mikey Weinstein have told us independently that there is no dialoging with the other.  That is a shame, because shouting matches typically yield bad results.  

More than ever we believe that the men and women who appear in our documentary can help bring us out of this impasse.  In a debate rife with accusations,  it is useful to listen to troops and to chaplains who serve their needs.   

We did not cherry-pick the chaplains we followed.  The way the military works, public affairs officers try to find units that are willing to accept journalists.  So our sample of chaplains is about as random as we could make it, and the demographics ended up reflecting the general demographics of the chaplaincy corps: of the 26 chaplains we saw at work downrange and at Landstuhl hospital in Germany, one is a Jewish rabbi, the rest are Christian. Among the latter, one is Greek Orthodox, one is Church of Latter Day Saints, four are Roman Catholic, the rest (19 or 73%) are Protestants and, of these, about 65% belong to what have come to be termed fundamentalist, evangelicals.

What we found was that a chaplain’s faith is not the defining factor.  It is the chaplain’s relationship with the troops in his or her unit; it is his or her attitude toward the troops, not personal ideology, that makes the chaplain effective -- or not.   So while we are thrilled that others are covering chaplains and bringing to light a very crucial debate, we also believe ever more strongly that there is a need for the kind of information, context and examples that our documentary provides.  And we are working hard to get it out just as soon as we possibly can.